I guess it wouldn't matter that much, but in every single manual or licensing agreement I've read for software, I've found licensing transfer procedures. And if they weren't in the manual or the agreement, usually contactin the company is enough to get the job done.

I breezed through Right Hemisphere's website and they allow for licensing transfers. They seemed pretty cool about it -- just wanted to make sure that you did so properly so they could set all their stuff on their end (I guess your software talks to their server or something).

Historically, CAD software has been, well, caddish about such things. They've usually erred on the side of being dicks about licensing. Early Microsoft hardware and software was like that as well, insisting that your copy was really THEIR copy, and that there's no rights to transfer. If you check out the EULA for the old Microsoft Apple ][ Z80 card, they practically claimed they even owned the software you wrote for their Z80 card. It was crazy!

CAD licenses are still a bit behind the times because, frankly, not enough people have kicked their high-pressure asses over it. They have all kinds of crazy security, such as hardware dongles and software connections, and other junk (usually the bane of firewalls and virus detectors). These are also folks who charge thousands of dollars for their software. Accounting software's pretty much the same way. Really expensive, really tight. Unix software was like that quite often for the same reason. At first, they COULD be draconian, and no one's pointed out that they suck enough for them to bother changing it officially. But if you contact them, they usually have a way.

As far as plug-ins go, well, I really don't know. I haven't dug too deeply into the issue for plug-ins, because usually if the product cost less than a hundred bucks or so, it's usually easier and cheaper to just buy multiple seats. So, maybe they have a draconian policy, or maybe they have leftover draconian language from a boilerplate. Maybe with those folks, you call 'em up, and tell them you want to transfer your software to someone else and they say "well, you promise to delete it from your computer?" and that's all that matters to them. Plug-ins are dribs and drabs.

I think in any instance if one thinks one is at all likely to transfer the software to a different owner, then one had best check out the EULA and/or contact the manufacturer and ask their policy. Most of the ones who manufacture software that is reasonably transferrable have a policy for transferring the software.